Senior Centers Home To Many War Heroes

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – As America paused to remember its wartime service personnel this Veterans Day, some senior centers in Dallas recognized their individual residents who contributed to war efforts, especially World War II.

Sig Liberman is among a dozen or so veterans honored during programs at the Windsor Senior Center in Dallas. He was in three major European battles; wounded at the Battle of Bulge. But he was truly horrified to find corpses stacked at Nordhausen, Germany, where thousands of resident from France and Poland too sick to work were sent to die.

“I freed a concentration camp in Nordhausen,” Liberman said of the German concentration camp supporting Hitler’s V-2 program in 1945. “Not one was shot, they were all starved to death and this is a story that has to be told to our children,” he said. “Those that hear about it — if they digest it — will live to be a better human being.” He worries about anti-semitism and racism still in the world today.

Roy Moskop fought in Italy; knowing his girlfriend, Helen, was waiting back home helped him face the war. “Scared, you know, wondering what was going to happen to us when we were going to be involved,” he said. Roy and Helen married in 1945 when he returned from fighting. He observes that war commitments are different now. “The big difference, of course, in World War II it involved the entire population.”

Bill Schultz served in the Army just after the war and through Korea. “The Cold War was full blown,” he recalled. The patch he sports on his suspenders shows him to be an early member of the CIA during the Korean conflict. He remembers originally volunteering for the Army so he wouldn’t be drafted. “It was something that I felt I had to do. And I never regretted having done it.” Asked about America today he offered, “It’s the greatest country ever. And I’m proud to have served it.”

There was also an observance at the Caruth Haven Assisted Living Center. There are fewer veterans every year, but their stories remain dramatic. Ernest Boyd was a German POW, and recalled how a kindness he showed one prisoner, a German major, came back to benefit him at his own capture when that same man spared him from being shot outright. He never saw the officer again.

Albert Wolan was a combat Army Engineer. He went with the troops at Utah Beach on D-Day. “It’s just a reminder to me of where I was, and where I’ve been, and where I am now. I was no more of a hero than any of the other guys. We had some scrapes, but we were able to get through it all.”